Thank god I had full length jeans on, today I decided to separate my two toms because they have been cooped up in a 12 ft by 12 ft run together for the past couple of months. I separated them from the hens because the hens had gone broody and were laying on eggs. The toms were sometimes aggressive toward each other and the smaller tom had been picked on quite a bit so I decide to clip the smaller ones wings to let him run loose in the back pasture. As I walked in and caught the smaller tom to clip his wings I kept an eye on the larger tom because he seemed agitated at me for catching his buddy. The more I held on to the smaller tom and the more the tom I was holding fussed the more the larger turkey took on a fighting stance. After about 10 seconds of commotion the larger tom looked like he wanted to attack, he started to come towards me kind of sideways and turning his head from side to side moving his legs nervously, at that point I knew he was going to attack so I started to stand up while still holding on to the smaller tom. As I stood up he attacked me with a kick like a rooster would with his spurs and caught my jeans with one of his toe nails, like I said, thank God I had full length jeans on cuz he would have drawn blood.
This tom has shown signs of aggression before so I recognized signs of the oncoming attack, that being said it's always a good idea to get to know your animals.
If this attack would have been unprovoked that turkey would have met his maker within second, but I caused the attack so he was never disciplined for his actions.
